1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a vehicle electronic system using a cooling fluid for removing the heat generated by the heat source or sources within the electronic system.
2. Related Art
At present with the advances in electronics, multimedia entertainment systems, and telecommunications, there is an strong demand for integrating ever more complex multimedia entertainment and telecommunication systems (herein referred to as “infotainment” systems) into vehicles such as automobiles, water crafts, motorcycles, and aircraft. Increasingly, users desire vehicles that integrate infotainment systems that include infotainment components such as, for example, AM, FM, digital, and satellite radios, cassette players, CD and DVD players, MP3® players and interfaces, iPod® interfaces, navigation and GPS systems, video sensors, video game consoles, hands-free cellular telephone systems or interfaces, Bluetooth® interfaces, Internet interfaces, etc. To meet these demands vehicle manufactures have designed their vehicles to accept vehicle electronic systems (typically from third party manufactures) that integrate as many of these infotainment components as possible.
Unfortunately, the result of integrating many of these infotainment components into vehicle electronic systems results in thermal problems because of the increasing packing density resulting from more and more electronic devices being integrated in a limited space and of the increasing power demands of my of these infotainment components. As an example, the trend towards superior graphical performance and the increasing demand for speech and sound processing lead to the implementation of more power hungry faster and more specialized processors as well as higher memory capacities that also require more power. In addition, the operating temperature limits of the vehicle electronic devices impose restrictions to the hardware design engineers in the selection of proper processors because many of these powerful processors for use in these types of infotainment components are specified only for consumer electronics and those that are specified for vehicle applications are typically expensive or have the lowest possible upper temperature limits. Thus, these increased power factors result in these infotainment components producing more heat which results in higher operating temperatures for the vehicle electronic devices that incorporate these infotainment components. To protect the electronic components in these vehicle electronic devices, the greater heat produced by these infotainment components needs to be compensated for with proper cooling systems and methods.
Unfortunately, at present, vehicle electronic devices are cooled in general through thermal conduction through their housings to the vehicles surrounding walls, radiation heat exchange with the surrounding air, and air convection. As an example, in many cases in the automotive environment where natural thermal convection does not sufficiently allow the vehicle electronic device to operate within the temperature limits specified for given automotive applications, fan systems are typically utilized to drive the surrounding air through the vehicle electronic device in order to enhance the cooling of the vehicle electronic device by utilizing forced convection. However, many automotive manufactures need to mount different vehicle electronic devices in areas that typically have limited space such as the dashboard and as such request that these vehicle electronic devices function in temperatures environments up to, for example, about 85° C. Unfortunately, the problems associated with the limitations of air cooling and the full functional operation of the vehicle electronic devices may result in these devices only be guaranteed to properly operate up to about 65° C. in environmental temperature with possibly short temperature busts of up to about 70° C. Therefore, there is a need for a vehicle electronic device capable of overcoming these problems.